CLARKSVILLE — After over 50 years in business, the Clarksville Sears within the Green Tree Mall will join several others and close by early October, according to a blog post by Sears Holdings Corp. that was published on Friday.
By closing, the main Sears store joins the auto center at the mall, which shuttered its doors on May 27.
The Clarksville Sears is one of 35 Kmart and eight Sears stores closing by early October or August of this year. Three of those Kmarts and two other Sears are located in Indiana and Kentucky. Liquidation sales at the stores, including Clarksville's, will begin as early as July 13.
The Clarksville Sears, along with a JCPenney and Dillard's, is one of Green Tree Mall's anchor stores, and was actually built in 1966 with the intention of the mall opening later, which it did in 1968. The Green Tree Sears is 86,400-square feet while the JCPenney and Dillard's are 119,604-square feet and 205,996-square feet, respectively.
The mall is already in discussions with "a number" of retailers and other users on filling the Sears space once it is empty, said Stacey Keating, the director of public relations for CBL Associates & Properties Inc. the company that owns the Green Tree Mall.
Keating said that the closing of Sears is an opportunity and that it will have a positive impact on the mall.
"These closures allow us to take underperforming space and convert it into fresh new retail, driving traffic, sales and growth to the entire property," she said.
The Green Tree Mall's occupancy rate is in line with the industry average, Keating said. (The vacancy rate for regional malls was 7.9 percent during the first quarter of 2017, according to Business Insider).
A couple of vacant storefronts did line Green Tree Mall's halls briefly in November after the mall's Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret moved to bigger locations, but one is now occupied by a store called 360 Degrees. The other will be home to a Fusion Spa tenant come August. A Zero Degrees Thai Ice Cream is also opening later this month in the mall's center court.
As for the Sears, the number of people employed at the store is "not available," said Sears Holding spokesman Howard Riefs, in an email, but "eligible" employees will receive a severance and have the opportunity to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores. (Sears still has stores at the Jefferson and Oxmoor malls in Louisville).
“This is part of a strategy both to address losses from unprofitable stores and to reduce the square footage of other stores because many of them are simply too big for our current needs,” said Eddie Lampert, chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings, in his blog post about the recent closings.
Business Insider reported that the closings will bring Sears' store count to less than 1,140. Five years ago, there were 2,073 stores. The company previously announced in January that it would be shutting down 108 Kmart stores and 42 Sears stores. In April, the company said it would be closing 50 auto centers and 92 Kmart pharmacies.
2017 has been a tough year for brick-and-mortar retailers, in general. Brokerage firm Credit Suisse is predicting that 8,600 stores will shut down by year’s end. For comparison, only 2,056 stores closed in 2016 and just 6,163 shut down in 2008 at the height of the recession.
In Clarksville, HHGregg has also closed — leaving 25,000-square feet available in the nearby River Falls Mall.
Sears Holding Corp. is not taking its decisions to close stores lightly, Lampert said in his blog post, and its efforts are “fact-based, thoughtful and disciplined with the goal of making Sears Holdings more relevant and more competitive..."
The closings are part of an attempt for the company to achieve $1.25 billion in annualized cost savings. Reduced support from vendors in the last year has placed pressure on the business, according to the blog post.
The company also owes $4.2 billion and has said in its annual report to investors that it has “substantial doubts” that it will survive.
In his blog post, however, Lampert said, “We remain highly focused on our two most important objectives — transforming Sears Holdings into an integrated retailer that provides superior value to our members and returning our company to profitability."
The CEO said that the company is committed to taking further action to unlock value from its assets and to realign its business model to build a retailer of the future.
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